Happy Fathers Day!

Happy Fathers Day

 

 

Wishing all dads out there a very happy fathers day but two men in particular.  My wonderful father, who has always been one of my best friends, my biggest supporter and my first love!  The second, my amazing husband who is a fabulous father to our four little bergies!  Both of these mean have stolen my heart and have earned a very high rank in the father world.



 

 

This year for Fathers Day, I made Joe a book the begins with pictures of he and I and then went on to have individual pages for each kids in birth order.  After those pages, there were multiple pages of pictures that included Daddy with the kids and the siblings together.  I have thrown in a few full family pictures....boy that is a challenge, six people looking and smiling at the camera. 

 

The kids gave him cards and presents the made in school before the year ended.  The cutest present of all.....the Pet Rock from Darling!  Very cute!

 

I think that Fathers Day 2013 was a success here in our house, hope it was a success in your house too!

 

Enjoy the day Dads!





28 and a half days....

So the kids got off the bus today and informed me that there is only 28.5 days of school left!  Holy smokes, that went by fast!  We are all VERY ready for summer, the warm weather and relaxing days and most of all, THE BEACH but wow, I am not sure I am ready for summer vacation yet!  Four kids home all day, the "I'm Bored" that is definitely going to be coming out of their mouths but most of all....the he said she said issue.  I definitely need to start preparing now!  I need to start thinking of fun ideas to keep them occupied and my sanity. 

What to do, what to do.....ahhhh yes.....PINTREST!

Who doesn't love Pintrest and for those who don't use it, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

I have found that you can seriously anything on Pintrest.  I love to look at recipes and get all excited about the future dinners I can make (which rarely happen but I can dream right?)

I guess 28.5 days is the right time to start pinning summer ideas.  I better get started.  The other thing to have fun with will be the reading clubs.  Our local library does one that tracks the pages the kids read and they earn prizes as well as entries into giveaways, etc.  The kids really love that and we can do weekly visits to the library, where the kids have a blast, all for FREE!  The Barnes and Noble here also does one for the older kids, they have to read 8 books and then they will earn a free book from the selected list.  They LOVE reading and then writing their recommendations all for the free book at the end!  I definitely recommend that EVERYONE with kids home for the summer look into reading programs.  Kids really enjoy them and they provide "something" to do in the summer, not to mention really making reading fun. 

So there it is....I'm now officially on summer vacation panic mode.  Hopefully I can put together a nice enjoyable summer vacation for the kids for all the days in between our very anticipated beach trips. 

Enjoy the month of May....it will go FAST!

The Dinner Rut

Anyone ever been in a dinner rut?  We get stuck in them every once in awhile and right now is one of those times.  The newest the struggle we are facing is that we are eating a lot!  The kids are going to eat us out of house and home if they are eating this much at 7,5,3 and 1!! 

I am on the search for "easy" meals that will feed a large family while not breaking the budget or being extremely unhealthy.  I am in no way looking for recipes that are all natural, fat free, yada yada, but rather foods that are well rounded or good for growing kids!  Anyone have any suggestions?

We bought half a cow back in November and it has been awesome to have the meat in the house whenever we want and to not have to worry about buying it on sales, but we can only eat beef so many days in a row and need to mix it up.  Joe and I eat a lot of salads so grilled chicken or salmon on salads but the kids get board with that.  We do love pasta and good cheesy Italian meals but we try to limit those too! 

We are stuck.  I love my crockpot but need some fun recipes for that.  I need to mix up our dinners and I don't know how.  We are open to a little bit of everything, only one kid is really picky and she will learn to at least try stuff or not eat anything because we can't feed the whole family around ones limit menu!

I am also thinking about baking my own bread.  I have made bread in the past....we are talking 2-3 loaves my whole life but it is so yummy and I think if I spend a few hours one weekend afternoon making multiple loaves, I can freeze them then we can have fresh homemade bread more often! 

My goal is to keep fully stocked freezer of meats, quick meals, side dishes and baked goods.  I want to be "that" mom.  Hey, a mom can dream right?

Shuffle...Repeat

Some days I feel like my days are on Shuffle and then repeat.  Everyday I write my list of things to do and everyday the first half is the same.  Dishes, Wipe Kitchen counters, Dining room table and floors, make beds, vacuum living room, laundry... that part never changes.  The second half the list is just as long if not longer consisting of emails to send, phone calls to make, appointments to schedule, etc.  Sometimes I just can't seem to be done with the list.  Majority the time, I do finish the list but starting right back up on the same list the very next day makes it seem like it has never ended.  There are ALWAYS dishes to do....ALWAYS laundry to be done so am I ever really done?

Although this may sound like a complaining entry, it really isn't, I don't mind all my to do list items and I really don't mind doing them over and over again but sometimes it simply seems like it never stops.  I feel like days begin to jumble together and determining when one day's to do list is done and the next days starts is nearly impossible. 

There must be away to fix this....or not!  :) 

My goal is to make a better plan for cleaning the house so that when the kids are done with school (ONLY 34 MORE DAYS!) I at least am in a routine of sorts to keep the house maintained.  I do not, nor do I want to, keep an immaculate house.  The fact is we live here....all 6 of us!  I don't want dust bunnies that are big enough to walk away or a science project growing on the toilet but I am not the type of person to run around all day one room to the next scrubbing and vacuuming just to do it all over again.  I do my daily stuff....the things listed above, but I need to figure out a good schedule for each bathroom, mopping the kitchen floor, my office, etc.  Recently Joe and I have spent a few hours on Sundays catching up on the house.  This isn't bad, the kids play together by themselves and Joe and I get a few good hours in but I would like to have more of a structured clean schedule so we don't have to spend our Sunday cleaning.  Hmmm....maybe I will have to add that to my to do list for tomorrow! 

The other thing that I need to figure out is laundry.  I have been doing 1-2 loads of laundry a day and I seem to keep up on it but never all of it.  It is a very rare occasion that I have zero piles of laundry on the laundry room floor.  Maybe I should try a marathon day of laundry, although I think it would have to be 2 days.  Day one....6-8 loads of laundry washed and dried.  Day two.....fold and put away all 6-8 loads of laundry.  That would leave me the rest of the week to pile up laundry all over again! Ha....

We shall see, for today though, my to-do list is 75% of the way done and I am already thinking about what is on the list for tomorrow. 

The best thing of all......I wouldn't change it for the world!!!!!

Thunderstorms

I LOVE THUNDERSTORMS!

I love to sit at a window or on the porch and watch the lightening and listen to the rain as it pounds down against the roof!  I find it to be oddly relaxing.  Thunderstorms like the one last night make  me miss South Carolina though!  The storms down there were crazy, quick and phenomenal.  The made the whole house shake.  One thing that never failed to happen though is the smell.  The wind and heavy rain that comes with these storms would stir up the ocean water and cause a distinct saltwater and "beachy" smell.  Enough of that though....back to last nights storm.

Out of our four kids, only one is scared of thunderstorms.  Funny thing is, she wasn't afraid of them until the local weatherman came to speak to her preschool class.  He told the class about how thunderstorms worked and then proceeded to tell them how dangerous they were and how they needed to always be in a safe place, etc.  Well apparently she missed the whole part on "not standing by a large tree or flying a kite" all she heard was they were dangerous!  Since this visit she has been scared.  Even when we are inside the house and she knows she is safe, she is nervous and occasionally panicky.  No matter how much reasoning we have with her or how much we convince her that she is fine and the storm is not bad, it is even beautiful and enjoyable to watch, she is not comfortable.  As time has past, she has been able to control her emotion and is not a completely mess but you can always tell! 

It is funny how one thing can be beautiful and relaxing to one person and scary and nerve racking to another.  Hopefully as she continues to grow older, she will begin to enjoy these storms and can eventually she the beauty in them!

Speech

In October 2011, Kayleigh began speech therapy for delays she was showing.  She was in a program with the state called Early Intervention (an amazing program) and she qualified there for one year.  This program is available to infants through age 3.  Since her one year evaluation fell within her 6 months of her third birthday, she no longer qualified for their program. For kids 3 and older, the state has a program that is called Central Intermediate Unit.  The week prior to her 3rd birthday she had her evaluation to see if she still qualified for speech assistance.  Thankfully she did qualify and began speech today for the first time with her new speech pathologist.  She misses her old speech teacher "Ms. Alison" but seemed to really like her new one, "Ms. Lynn."  The CIU uses more educational based tools to help with speech and Kayleigh got homework from speech today which made her really excited!  Darling gets homework everyday and Kayleigh felt like a big girl doing her homework too!

I am so grateful for both these programs that have helped our little girl talk (sometimes too much!) and communicate!  When she started with the EI program, she said "Mom" and "Da" and that was it.  She now has an immense vocabulary and we are now working on the annunciation part of her speech!

Can't wait to see what is next for our Flash and how she progresses from here!!

Golfing

We took the kids to a free clinic at the local University golf course.  This was an event that was run by some local students who were earning a grade based on the success of this clinic.  They had a great turn out.  Our three oldest participated and were very excited to do so.  They did five stations (although Kayleigh only made it to the second one, which was rules and etiquette...too much for a 3 year old!) which included chipping and bunkers, driving, a mini golf course, rules and etiquette, and Golfzilla.  The kids favorite was Golfzilla, a 24 foot high giant inflatable dinosaur that has holes in his arms, feet and belly for kids to hit the golf balls through.  It was a lot of fun. 

After the golfing was done, the kids all got pizza, drinks and snacks. It was a very nice event and the kids had a blast.  Darling did Tiger Golf last summer and will be doing it again this summer, maybe she will go pro and take care of  Mommy and Daddy forever!  Just kidding....kinda. ;)

I have never golfed much, only once or twice but Joe likes to golf and I am looking forward to learning soon.  Golfing makes me think of South Carolina, there are beautiful golf courses in Charleston and the weather makes it ideal for golfing most months out of the year.  Soon Joe and I will be golfing on a warm Saturday afternoon in Charleston. 

The masters of coming up....looking forward to watching!!